Sue-Ellen Welfonder - MacKenzie 07 (35 page)

He ran faster, his gaze searching everywhere. He scanned the beach and the dunes, the weird clusters of glistening black outcroppings of rock that broke the monotony of the broad, white-sanded beach.

She had to be somewhere.

And then he saw her.

Or rather he saw her naked buttocks.

Darroc froze, staring. She was on all fours, her delectable arse bobbing in the air.

Disbelief slammed through him, making his jaw slip as he watched her disappear into a round hole that appeared to be a tunnel through one of the strange rock formations.

"By the Rood!" He blinked, then knuckled his eyes.

It could be he was dreaming.

But then she emerged from the other side of the tunnel and he knew he wasn't.

He was wide awake and not believing his eyes.

She hadn't yet seen him. Indeed, she seemed intent on fumbling in her travel pouch, which Darroc only now noticed sitting on the sand near the rocks. He looked on as she withdrew a skin of something - milk, he quickly saw - and poured the liquid onto the sand in front of the tunnel entrance. Not yet finished, she produced a small linen sack and, walking naked along the edge of the out-cropping, began shaking oats on the rocks.

Finally, she bent to retrieve a small earthen jar from her pouch. Darroc recognized it immediately as one of the honey jars from Geordie Dhu's larder. Still unaware she was being watched, she removed the waxed stopper and, dipping her fingers into the jar, began dabbing the rocks with honey.

It was more than Darroc could bear.

Naked as he was, he strode forward, not stopping until he was right behind her.

"Lass!" He put a hand on her shoulder. "What in God's name are you doing?"

"Oh, no-o-o!" She spun around, the honey jar flying from her fingers. "I thought you were asleep!"

"And I thought you were." He looked at her, sure he'd never seen anyone turn so many varied shades of red.

"I - " She flipped back her hair then and gave a great sigh. "Ah, well, you deserve the truth. This is another reason I wished to come here."

"Indeed?" Darroc arched a brow and tried to keep his lips from twitching.

Now that he'd found her, the hilarity of the situation was taking its toll. As was her nakedness, which was causing twitching of an entirely different sort.

"This" - she indicated the outcropping and its tunnel - "is the Giving Stone, a pagan shrine dedicated to women and - "

"A pagan shrine?"

She nodded. "Legend claims that any woman who crawls through the stone at the moment of sunrise will be granted her heart's desire."

She looked down at the fallen honey jar. "The honey and oats and milk were offerings. It's said - "

"Ahhh...." Darroc rubbed his chin. "Yestere'en it was St. Egbert and this morn the Auld Ones."

She clasped her hands before her, twining her fingers. "I forgot to pray at the hermit's shrine. I don't really believe in pagan magic, but since I came this far and always planned to do this, I worried that if there is any truth to the stone's powers, I might anger the rock spirits if I ignored them."

"And was your wish the same as yester'en?"

"It was."

"And if I offered again to show you why you have no need for such prayers and charms?" He slid his arms around her, drawing her close. So close that the round fullness of her breasts were crushed against him and the tantalizing softness of her nether curls meshed with the black hair springing thickly at his own sex.

He kissed her, his lips cold and tasting of the clean, brisk air. "What if I show you now how very much I love and desire you?"

"I think I already know." But she let herself melt into him. Delicious shivers rippled down her spine when he slipped a hand between them to cup her breast, his fingers toying with her nipple.

"Och, nae, minx." He lowered his head to nip the lobe of her ear and then nibbled his way down the side of her throat, his fingers still plucking and rubbing the crested peak of her breast. "You might know fine that I love and desire you, but there are many ways I'd like to prove it to you."

He dropped to his knees before her then and she suddenly knew.

He meant to do something Gelis loved.

Something very, very wicked that she didn't think she could bear. He grasped her hips and looked up her, the glint in his dark eyes saying she'd guessed rightly.

"Oh, no." She tried to jerk free. "You can't do that."

His lips curved into a roguish smile. "Ah, but I can and shall," he purred, rubbing his cheek against her belly. "Again and again" - he kissed her maiden hair - "until I've sated myself on you."

"But you can't - aaagh!" Arabella threw her head back when he parted her thighs and licked her.

It felt so good!

She began to tremble, sure she'd fall if he wasn't holding her. Proving his word, he kept licking her, stopping only to drag hot kisses over her hips, belly, and thighs. He smoothed his hands up and down her legs as he pleasured her and she thrust her fingers into his hair, holding him close as he kissed and teased his way back to where she burned the hottest.

"Darroc, please...." She clutched at him as he spread her legs wider, licking her more slowly and thoroughly now. He caught her gaze, his own eyes flashing with an expression that made her insides quiver.

"I want to please you." Still watching her, he slid one finger slowly down the center of her, then back up again. "I do not want you to ever doubt me," he vowed, using his tongue to circle her most sensitive place as he slipped one finger inside her. "Not now" - he began suckling that special little nub - "and not e'er."

"I won't. I mean I don't - aieeeee!" She tossed her head again, crying out this time as astonishing pleasure streaked through her. Maddeningly delicious waves of tingly heat streamed out from that one tiny spot he was still flicking with his tongue.

"That's my lass." He opened his mouth over her, sucking hard on the whole of her.

It was too much.

Her knees buckled and she sank onto the sand, breathless and spent. "Oh, dear saints." She could barely speak, the words a mere gasp. "I have never...."

"No' like that, I know." Darroc grinned at her.

She smiled back, sure she'd never be able to get to her feet again.

As if he knew, he leaned down and scooped her up in his arms. He carried her to the little sail screen tent, his own strides sure and steady.

"No more doubts?" He threw back the tent flap and shouldered his way inside.

"Not a one?"

"Not even half a one." The truth of it spooled through her, heady and sweet, as he crossed the small space and lowered her down onto the blankets.

"Then rest if you can." He drew a coverlet over her, gently smoothed her hair.

"We sail for home as soon as the men have slept off last night's ale."

Arabella blinked up at him, still too limp from what he'd done to her to do much more. But his words circled in her mind, pleasing her heart as much as his lovemaking had pleasured her body.

We sail for home....

He meant Castle Bane.

Arabella sighed with happiness. She couldn't think of anything sweeter.

The first thing Darroc did upon returning to Castle Bane was visit his notch room.

To his surprise, or perhaps not, someone had made changes to the bleak little chamber in his absence. Strewing herbs, fragrant and sweet, covered the floor's sturdy wooden planking and colorful tapestries graced cold stone walls bare of decoration for centuries. Someone had tended the hearth as well, sweeping out years of cobwebs and ash.

A fire didn't burn there, but a new grate stood at the ready and a wicker basket waited close by, brimming with kindling and peat.

Only the room's four tall windows were the same, the stone splays still cut deeply into the tower wall and the notches there as always.

His marks jumped out at him. Bold and exact, they ran up and down the window arch in neat, orderly rows. Those made by Asa Long-Legs, saints grace her soul, also remained as they'd ever been. The scratches were still faint and barely visible, their number greater than his own but the lines painfully crooked.

Looking at Asa Long-Legs's notches, Darroc's own words came back to him.

MacConacher's Isle wasn't made for women. But he knew now that he'd been mistaken. The isle was made for women, leastways a very special one that he meant to marry as soon as arrangements could be made.

With or without her father's blessing.

But first he had other business to attend to. Something he never thought he'd do but that filled him with bright hope and exaltation.

It felt good to put the past behind him.

Especially knowing his future held such unexpected happiness and bliss.

Taking a deep breath, he cast a glance at the room's open door and the only other thing that hadn't changed while he was away at Olaf Big Nose's settlement, banishing Black Vikings and winning his lady's heart.

Frang lay flopped on the floor of the landing, just outside the notch room's threshold. The dog's eyes were ever watchful and he swished a dutiful tail, perhaps thinking a show of some loyalty or affection might make up for his refusal to enter the notch room.

Mina was there, too.

Like Frang, she wouldn't enter the room, preferring to huddle behind the larger dog's shaggy bulk. But her bright tufted head peeped over Frang's shoulder, her ears perked and curious.

Looking away before he went misty-eyed - he'd missed them both fiercely -

Darroc crossed the room to his own notch window and reached for his special chisel and mallet. He turned them over in his hands, remembering how he'd bought them in Glasgow as a lad. He'd used his last coin to make the purchase and he took such good care of them that both could still be passed off for new.

They'd served him well.

But now...

Darroc heard a sigh, the sound soft and sweet. It was a sigh of great contentment.

And - he knew - a sigh that he hadn't made.

He frowned and pulled a hand down over his face.

As always, the notch room worked on him in strange ways at times. Imagining a sigh when there hadn't been one shouldn't surprise him. But it was odd that the noise had sounded so feminine.

Almost like the breath of an angel.

He decided he'd only heard the soughing of wind and returned his attention to the tools in his hands. They'd grown warm from his touch and he almost felt sorry for them, knowing what he was about to do.

Then, before sentiment got the better of him and spoiled an act he'd been planning for days, he pressed them once against his chest, just over his heart.

That last nod to olden times behind him, he drew a deep, fortifying breath and stepped closer to his window. He pitched the tools through the arch, leaning forward to watch them spin their way down to the sea where they vanished beneath the waves, gone before he even realized he no longer held them.

"Live well," he said, feeling foolish, but knowing he had to say something.

The chisel and mallet had been his companions for long.

Now he was glad to be rid of them.

Wanting to return to his bedchamber and slip beneath the covers with Arabella, if only to hold her as she slept, he dashed a hand across his eyes and strode from the room, taking the tower stairs two at a time.

His thumping footsteps echoed loudly in the turnpike stair, the noise carrying into the notch room and drowning out the soft, satisfied sigh anyone might have heard if they'd only bothered to listen.

But the little room was empty again.

Cold and lonely as had been its fate for so many long years.

Though this morn the room had borne witness to something new.

Something so wondrous and exciting - who would have thought that the young chief would throw away his notch-making tools? - that Asa Long-Legs could contain herself no longer. It was just such a shame that he'd heard her sigh and, as always, dismissed her as the wind.

She was bursting with happiness for the young pair and wished she could share her joy with someone.

She'd tried to speak with the old woman, the one they called Mad Moraig, when she'd hobbled abovestairs to put the notch room in order. Not mad at all: the crone knew before the return of the couple that things had finally turned good for them.

Asa had seen that in Moraig's eyes.

But the old woman had never guessed that she wasn't alone each time she'd scurried about, dusting and tacking her tapestries on the wall. Wishing it were otherwise, Asa closed her eyes and began to spin and shimmer, glowing ever brighter until she wasn't just a thought but a true presence in the little room.

She drifted about, trailing shining hands along the newly hung tapestries, remembering how the silken threads would have felt beneath her fingers if only she could still touch them for real.

Her home in Scalloway had been decorated with many such hangings, each one more exquisite than the other. Asa's heart hurt to think of them. But then it always pained her to remember her home.

She lifted a hand to her cheek, dashing away tears that sparkled like the jewels her father had once showered on her. But those memories, too, were bittersweet.

So she tried again to focus on the young couple, wishing she could make them something special for their wedding.

She so wished she, too, could have enjoyed such a gloriously happy ending.

Then perhaps it is time.

The deep voice came from right behind her and she jumped, whirling around so fast that she would've made herself dizzy if she'd done so in her true life. She peered around the familiar little room, but no one was there. It was just as empty as before, and just as cold.

She sighed again and started to glide toward her special window - the north one because it looked to Shetland - but she froze in the middle of the room when she saw that one of the new tapestries was shimmering and shining, turning bright and luminous just like her.

"Oh, dear." She hovered where she was, fear gripping her.

Nothing like this had ever happened.

But then something else startled her.